Cohen taped Trump discussing payment to model
MATT APUZZO, MAGGIE HABERMAN AND MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording.
The FBI seized the recording this year during a raid on Cohen’s office.
The Justice Department is investigating Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Trump before the 2016 election.
Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws.
The disclosure highlights the potential legal and political danger that Cohen represents to Trump.
Once the keeper of many of Trump’s secrets, Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider co-operating with prosecutors.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation Friday that Trump had discussed the payments with Cohen on the tape but said a payment was never made.
He said the recording was less than two minutes and demonstrated that the president had done nothing wrong.
“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani said, adding Trump had directed Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, write a cheque, rather than sending cash, so it could be properly documented.
“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Giuliani.
The former model, Karen McDougal, says she began a nearly yearlong affair with Trump in 2006, shortly after Trump’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron.
McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000 during the final months of the presidential campaign, but the tabloid sat on the story.
David J. Pecker, chair of the Enquirer’s parent company, is a friend of Trump’s.